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Thursday, April 19, 2018

That nagging feeling

You just know something terribly wrong is going to happen,
but you can’t put your finger on it. You don’t know when. You don’t know what. You
just know. And it gnaws at you.

You try to figure it out in an attempt to head it off and it
just isn’t coming to you. It frustrates the hell out of you.

It is a terrible, helpless feeling.

Then you realize what it is and there is absolutely nothing
you can do about it. Talk about helpless.

That’s sort of where I am right now with the Browns and
their plans for the upcoming college football draft a week from tonight deep in
the heart of Texas. More specifically, the first overall pick.

This is unquestionably a pivotal draft for a franchise that
has struggled – that’s putting it mildly – since returning to the National
Football League in 1999 following an unwarranted and underserved three-year
absence.

A team with a fan base that has been subjected to unmerciful
embarrassment in the last 19 seasons has finally positioned itself to have a
legitimate opportunity to restore the franchise’s good name.

By owning two of the first four selections in a
quarterback-rich lottery, they will be able to finally secure that elusive –
due largely to the ineptitude of previous front offices – future
franchise quarterback.

There is no question General Manager John Dorsey will grab
one of those quarterbacks as he embarks on his quest to restore the famed
legacy of the Browns prior to the move to Baltimore nearly two decades ago.

And that is where that feeling – the one of impending bad
news – kicks in. It is a recent arrival, but has caused some dyspepsia because
of the direction Dorsey appears to be headed with regard to that quarterback.

Word is leaking out as we plunge into the final week of
smoke screens that invariably lurk at this time of the NFL year.

Dorsey reportedly has narrowed his choices for the top pick
in the draft to Josh Allen and Sam Darnold, a couple of California kids. Unless
this is the mother of all smoke screens, Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen are
headed elsewhere.

Allen, if the rumors are true, appears to have nudged in
front of Darnold with a week to go. Thus that feeling.

(Full disclosure: I am a Sam Darnold fan. Have been since
watching him in that classic Rose Bowl victory over Penn State. Thought I was watching
the future Browns quarterback. Shocked, but happy, he declared this year.)

So when I hear Dorsey, who I greatly respect as a talent
evaluator, is leaning in Allen’s direction despite numerous red flags, I get
the sense this franchise will never again be relevant.

Makes no difference who runs the front office for this
franchise. He is destined to make the wrong move at a critical time because,
well, because he can’t help it. Destiny works that way.

If Allen turns out to the No. 1 pick, it will be just
another chapter of Murphy’s Law continuing to dog this franchise. It’s the
classic “if something can wrong, it will.”

When most of the evidence points not only to why Darnold should
be the choice but why Allen shouldn’t, Dorsey appears to side with the physical
freak: A quarterback who can launch a prolate spheroid 80 yards. How many
80-yard pass plays (on the fly) can new offensive coordinator Todd Haley stuff
into his playbook?

Asked Thursday at a pre-draft news conference, Dorsey was
asked what he looks for in a quarterback. “Does he have accuracy; does he have
a strong arm, red zone; at the end of a game, does he win,” he replied. “That’s
what I look for.”

Accuracy is something Allen does not possess. He was a career
56% passer at Wyoming, 56% for two straight seasons. Darnold completed 65% of
his passes at USC in two seasons (63% last season).

Allen, of course, has the stronger arm, although there’s
nothing wrong with Darnold’s arm. He can’t throw a football 80 yards, though.
As if that really makes a difference.

As for winning, Dorsey was unequivocal in his response. “The
only thing I really care about is does he win,” he said. All right, let’s
examine the facts.

Allen, plagued by shoulder problems last season, started 25
games in his Wyoming career and won 16. Darnold, who took over as the starting
USC quarterback four games into the 2016 season, started 24 games and lost
four.

So why, as we have been (smoke screen alert) led to believe, is Allen the frontrunner? Simple math gives that one to Darnold, at least in
Dorsey’s world.

Allen threw 44 touchdown passes and was intercepted 21 times
in 643 attempts. Darnold completed 57 touchdown passes and was picked off 22
times on 846 throws. These statistics do not lie.

The great separator between the two is Darnold is a much more
accurate passer because he delivers the ball on time, whereas Allen holds on to
the ball too long and then relies on his arm to get the ball where it needs to
be and is often late. It’s a timing
thing with Darnold far out in front as far as anticipation is concerned.

Unless he pulls off the biggest con since Henry Gondorff and
Johnny Hooker nailed Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting, it looks as though Dorsey has
decided Josh Allen is the Browns’ quarterback of the future.

There’s a very good chance he will be this year’s JaMarcus
Russell, the top pick in the 2007 lottery by the Oakland Raiders who lasted
just three seasons in the NFL. He could throw the football only 75 yards.

7 comments:

Do you know what’s really goofy about this? If you gave the other 31 teams the 1# pick, with instructions to select the best quarterback, how many would select Josh Allen over Darnold/Rosen/Mayfield? Possibly none…

If Darnold is there at #2, the Giants will break a leg running to the podium.

Bret Favre's completion percentage coming out of Southern Miss was worse than Allen's and Matthew Stafford's was one(1) percentage point better. The biggest factor in this draft is the fact that whoever it is doesn't have to play right away. He'll have time to correct flaws, sit and learn and get used to the pace of the NFL game. If he had to play immediately, I would agree with you, but that's not the scenario. None of this really means squat until next Thursday.

Bill, I Agree With You. But, This Is The Browns. We Just Got Rid Of Another Big, Strong-Armed Quarterback Because Of The Browns Incompetence. The Browns Should Have Let Kizer Sit Last Year. However, The Team Threw Kizer To The Wolves. The Year Before Kizer, They Threw Kessler To The Wolves. I Hope The Team Has Finally Learned From Some Of Its Many Mistakes And Will Let The Quarterback Sit At Least One Year.